The Liar's Key
• • •
For my first two weeks I bounced along, breaking even by the second. Despite my natural flair for gambling, good head for figures and excellent people skills, even swinging the sizeable financial stick that my great uncle’s ships represented, I couldn’t quite beat out a profit. Some might say that working the markets is a science, a trade that takes years to learn as you build your networks and develop understanding of the various trading domains. To my mind though it boiled down to wagering, albeit at the largest casino in the Broken Empire, and what I really needed was a system. Also more sleep. Between the long hours and the recurring dreams of Hennan meeting one grim end after another, I was wearing myself thin.
Week three found me nearly two thousand florins to the good and back at House Gold depositing my collection of certificates of sale. I still had to wait in line, intolerable on two counts, firstly no prince should have to stare at the sweaty back of another man’s neck and wait his turn—unless of course that man is a king, and secondly I sincerely doubted any of those ahead of me would be bringing quite such wealth to the counter, and surely any sensible bank should give priority to the rich.
I’d made most of the money on an arrangement to buy harbour space in a Goghan port. By the complex magic of my system I wouldn’t actually have to do the buying until much later on. Never, if I timed my exit from the city properly. A cough to my rear startled me from my contemplations.
“Prince Jalan, how are you enjoying your time in Umbertide?” The mathmagician I’d met on my first visit joined the queue behind me. He wore a striking robe of interlocking shapes, alternately black and white, a pattern that both fascinated the eye and told you the man’s home lay very far from here.
“I . . .” The fellow’s name escaped me but I covered it up pretty well. “Well, thank you. Profitable shall we say, and that’s always enjoyable.”
“Yusuf Malendra,” he said, offering me the black smile of his caste and inclining his head. “So you’re changing your skin I see.” He ran an amused eye down the length of my attire.
I frowned at that. Kara had said something similar. I’d adopted some of the local fashion and spent fifty florins on fine silk shirts, brocaded pantaloons, high calfskin boots, and a good felt hat complete with ostrich feather.
“Style never goes out of fashion, Yusuf.” I offered him a rich man’s smile. A handsome fellow like me can carry off most looks, and although a prince is always in fashion it never hurts to put on the right display.
“You’re a rich man now?”
“Richer,” I said, not sure I liked the implication that I’d arrived as a beggar.
“Perhaps you’ll be buying yourself some protection now that you’re rich . . . er? A wealthy man cannot be too careful, and a man that makes his money so fast must be running risks. We have a saying in my homeland. Taking risks is risky.” He shrugged apologetically. “It doesn’t translate well.”
“Perhaps I should.” The idea had occurred to me. I missed having over six and a half foot of Norse killing machine beside me. I had only to bump into the wrong person in the street and I could find myself at the sharp end of an argument that no amount of money in the bank could save me from. And besides, annoyingly, Yusuf had the right of it: my system wasn’t exactly the sort that would please the authorities if it came to light, and some muscle at my side might buy me time to get away if things ever came to a crunch.
“You’ll find no more capable defender than a clockwork soldier.” Yusuf made a question of it, cocking his head. “With such a one at your side you’d be a proper Florentine and no mistake.”
Six steps ahead an overly tall merchant from the Utter East concluded his transaction and we all shuffled closer to the counter.
“I’ve considered it,” I said. Actually I hadn’t. Something about the things rubbed me the wrong way and, despite the fact that a soldier would properly signify my status to the other traders on the floor and the unwashed beyond it, I had no intention of having one of the things follow me about. “I would be concerned over loyalty, though. How could I trust such a . . . mechanism?”
“How does one trust any man? Especially when his loyalty is purchased?” The mathmagician drew his robes about him as if cold, though Umbertide sizzled beyond House Gold’s walls and the relative coolness within would be considered hot by any sane man. “The Mechanists’ automata are ‘reset’ when sold. A machine, of which two working examples are known to exist, is used to form an impression of the new owner and creates a thin copper rod, no longer than my finger, in which striations may be seen, presumably encoding the new owner’s particulars in some manner. This rod is inserted through a small hole in the soldier’s head casing and the transfer of ownership is complete.”